The present invention relates to photographic packaging systems in which photographic prints and corresponding film negatives are sorted and packaged. In particular, the present invention relates to an improved monitoring system which permits the operator to compare frames of the film negatives with photographic prints to assure that the individual photographic prints will be packaged with their corresponding film negatives.
The high volume of work in photographic processing plants has led to an increasing need for automatic and semi-automatic equipment. Manual operations are an impediment to the work flow which is required for efficient and profitable operation.
One recent development has been photographic packaging systems such as the Pakomp II Photo Packer manufactured by Pako Corporation, which individually packages a large number of customer print orders. The Pakomp II Photo Packer includes a print cutter which cuts individual photographic prints from a large roll of photographic prints which contains prints for many different customer print orders. The prints are evaluated and are automatically sorted as either good, reject, or remake prints. The negatives corresponding to the photographic prints are cut from a continuous web or roll of film negatives in which the individual rolls of film have been spliced together for convenient handling in the photo finishing plant. A film cutter cuts the negatives into segments of three or four frames per segment and the segments of film negatives are packaged with the corresponding photographic prints for each customer order.
The operator must check to be certain that the film negatives being cut into segments correspond to the photographic prints then being cut by the print cutter. To assist in this monitoring, a television camera and closed circuit television monitor have been provided. The television camera monitors the film negatives so that the operator may compare the negatives being displayed on the television monitor with the photographic prints then positioned at the print cutter. As used in this patent application, the terms "television camera" and "television monitor" describe devices which produce both video and audio signals, or preferably produce only video signals.